


how to avoid murdering your friends (a guide from one exhausted genya safin)

by phybe



Series: Alina keeps her powers AU [1]
Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alina is also a disaster bi, F/F, F/M, Give Genya a break 2021, Mutual Pining, Together they're the most useless wlws this side of the Shadow Fold, Zoya is a disaster bi, there was Only One Tent (oh my god there was only one tent) — mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phybe/pseuds/phybe
Summary: Alina and Zoya won't stop arguing with each other. Or talking about each other. Or thinking about each other.Genya is going to snap. David offers an insight.And suddenly, it all makes alotmore sense.
Relationships: David Kostyk/Genya Safin, Zoya Nazyalensky/Alina Starkov
Series: Alina keeps her powers AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2183829
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	how to avoid murdering your friends (a guide from one exhausted genya safin)

If Genya had to endure one more minute of this, she was going to kill someone. Possibly herself.

Most likely Zoya.

Increasingly probable: Zoya and Alina, at the same time.

“Pray tell, Zoya,” Alina seethed, “how you got the idea that striking lighting in front of children was an adequate way to teach a class?”

“They asked to see grisha power. I showed them.”

“Right, and it didn’t occur you to — oh, I don’t know — summon a gentle gust of wind?”

“Next time, Starkov, you can come and give them a Sun-Summoner-approved little light show, if you think my methods are so _inadequate_.”

“Inadequate is reading from the wrong textbook. Lightning bolt almost burning a kid’s eyebrow, that’s _traumatic_.”

“It wasn’t traumatic! If it’s trauma they want—”

_“Nobody wants to give the kids trauma.”_

“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t, _Moi Soverenyi_.”

“They were all crying! Two won’t leave their rooms to go to dinner because they’re scared _lightning will fall on their head and kill them!”_

“Well if you want to raise a bunch of spoiled, coddled little—”

“Now that is rich of you to say, Nazyalensky—”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Genya was pretty sure her eye was twitching. This was getting ridiculous. They weren’t even in a meeting dedicated to the issue — Alina had come to visit Genya in the lab, Zoya had been there to get her armour fixed, and the rest had been as inevitable as a chemical reaction. Anytime these two got together for more than 60 seconds, they had to start a fight.

Sometimes, it took less than 60 seconds.

David looked up from his microscope. In his calm, unaffected tone, he said, “The way you’re staring at the poison shelf is worrying, my dear.”

“Oh, you’re not the one who should be worried,” she muttered, and got up to yet again separate the bickering pair.

***

At first, Genya had understood. 

After all, she’d hated Zoya long before Alina had shown up (though she could admit the Squaller had grown much more tolerable lately, to the point where Genya had tentatively started to see her as a friend). And although Alina was her best friend, she could see that the clash of her personality with Zoya’s was a simply disastrous match. The two of them were just as stubborn, proud, opinionated — and Saints, they had different opinions about everything.

How to run a school.

How to run an army.

How to run a country.

What to eat for lunch.

Which wallpaper would best match the war-room’s carpet.

The arguing was constant, and when they weren’t arguing, they still found ways to be at each other’s throat — a comment here, a snide remark there.

Worst of all, it continued _even when they weren’t together_.

“She’s impossible,” Alina would say, ignoring the gorgeous work Genya was doing on her hair. “I mean — can you believe how insufferable she is? What, she thinks that because she’s gorgeous she gets a pass at being a constant pest? I try to be nice to her, and she—”

“I can’t stand that little Saint,” Zoya would grumble over her untouched breakfast, “always moralizing, thinking she’s better than everyone else just because of her special powers. We get it, you rebuild orphanages on your lunch breaks, have another fucking medal. And the way she pretends she doesn’t care about clothes but then comes out and looks like _that_ —”

“She’s horrible.”

“Hypocritical.”

“Pretentious."

“A fraud.”

“A nightmare.”

And Genya was on the verge of implosion.

One night, in bed with David and after ingesting a copious amount of anti-migraine potion, she groaned. “I need us to go on a vacation. Somewhere very far, very _quiet_.”

“I’m always happy to spend time alone with you,” David said, and the calm sweetness of his words still made Genya’s heart skip a beat, even now that they were engaged. “But I’m afraid these two will still be arguing when we come back.”

“Ugh, you’re right,” she moaned. “They’d probably find a way to burn down the Little Palace.”

David suddenly looked appalled. “Even my laboratory?”

“I’m joking, love.” She kissed his cheek. “Mostly.”

“I don’t think they would go that far,” he said seriously. “They've stuck to verbal sparring, until now.”

“And every day I count my blessings for their lack of newly broken ribs, but their feud is getting impossible! Even during the civil war with all the Mal drama, it never got that bad!” Genya paused. “Do you think it’s a boy problem again? Oh Saints, is this about _Nikolai_?”

“It’s not about Nikolai.”

“Then who? Mal, still? Alina hasn’t mentioned him since they broke up, but maybe…”

David shrugged. “I don’t think either of them are interested in boys, right now.”

She rose an eyebrow. “Then what do you think?”

He took off his glasses, placing them on the nightstand. Then, he simply said, “I think that they’re in love with each other.”

Genya blinked. Her mouth fell open.

She did not laugh, only because it was impolite to make fun of one’s fiancé in the bedroom, but — “Honey, how could they be in love? They _hate_ each other!”

“They don’t,” he answered. “I don’t think. I mean, if they hated each other they wouldn’t want to spend time together, right? Alina nominated Zoya as general herself.”

“Because she respects her abilities.”

“Her abilities could be useful out of Os Alta. Also, they get together on every project possible. Remember when they paired up to go visit the aristocratic families? Or all the times they've shared a tent, when we were travelling?”

“We only had two tents.”

“We could have bought a third,” he pointed out. “Ravka is not _that_ bankrupt yet. They spend a lot of their free time together, too.”

“Yes, arguing!”

“I’m not saying they’re smart about it,” he allowed. “I’m saying… they think about each other constantly. I mean, that’s how I…” David scratched his cheek, hiding the start of a faint blush. “That’s how I figured I was in love with you. I thought about you all the time, even when you weren’t there.”

A pleasant warmth bloomed in Genya’s chest — it was always so strange to think that the David from before the war, always so impassive and expressionless, had already been in love with her.

She kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Later that night, she thought again of Zoya and Alina. Re-examined their interactions through this new filter David had suggested.

It was ridiculous.

Impossible.

…Or was it?

They did spend a hell of a lot of time together for a couple of enemies, that much was true. Genya _had_ often wondered why they always felt the need to pair up. She’d assumed it was because, when it was the four of them, they wanted to let her and David be together, but come to think of it, whenever Genya had suggested switching it up on certain missions, the option had always been casually dismissed.

As to when they complained or argued, if she thought about it, their conflicts were always laced with a kind of insecurity. It seemed they were most enraged when they did not get enough attention, recognition, or even respect from the other. One morning, after a very rough fight, Alina had given Zoya the silent treatment — Genya had _never_ seen the Storm Witch that angry. Even she had been a little scared.

Alina had lasted only a few hours before giving in, and when they’d started speaking after that, Zoya had looked… relieved. She’d even been something close to _nice_.

Saints.

Maybe David was right.

***

Genya Safin was many things. A grisha. A tailor. A gorgeous fiancée. A survivor. One thing many people forgot about, though, was that she was also a scientist. 

And if her friends were intent on being that obtuse, she would study them adequately.

The hypothesis was laid out. It was time to test it.

She started with the easiest one — Alina. She was closer to her, and, conveniently, the girl was an absolute light-weight. Genya took her to the Little Palace kitchens after work for a “catch-up”, and it took about three shots of kvas before the girl was flushed and loose-limbed, smiling pleasantly at her glass.

As she’d suspected, Genya did not have to so much as stir the conversation for the subject of Zoya to come up.

“She’s just… just so… ugh!” Alina slurred, closing her eyes.

“She’s better than she used to be,” Genya opted.

“Yeah, well, we were teenagers, so of course… But she’s still… infuriating. Did you hear what she said at the meeting today? Called me a, uh… Incompetent. What a wretch!”

“I think what she said was that you shouldn’t act like an incompetent," Genya pointed out, "meaning you aren’t.”

Clearly this was too much for drunken Alina to comprehend — she just frowned, looking confused.

“Nevermind,” Genya smiled, switching gears. “I’ve wondered, though, why is it that you dislike her so much? Zoya treated me like dirt for a good ten years of my life and I’m supremely petty, but even I am starting to see her good sides. So why are you two always… fighting?”

“I don’t know!” Alina grunted, passing her hands over her face. “It’s like, one second I’ll think she’s not so bad and maybe even my friend, but the next she looks at me like I’m… like I’m…”

“Incompetent.”

“Yes!”

Cautiously, Genya said, “Do you think it’s because you’re a little jealous of her?”

At that, Alina laughed. “Jealous?” She shook her head. “No, jealousy would be… you need to think you could have something to be jealous of it, right? You need to able to picture it. I could never be like her, I can’t even imagine what life would be like being so strong, so confident, so gorgeous… I’m just… I could never…”

Okay. So maybe David had a point. 

“Not even after what had happened with Mal?” Genya tried.

“That wasn’t on Zoya, she can do whatever she wants,” Alina said morosely, and Genya was surprised to hear the honesty in her voice. “I used to blame Mal…”

“Used to?”

“He had _Zoya Nazyalensky_ flirting with him,” she grumbled. “Who wouldn’t?”

 _I wouldn’t_ , Genya thought, but that was irrelevant.

Pointedly, she asked, “Would you?”

And in the dark flush that bloomed on Alina’s cheeks, she found her hypothesis entirely confirmed.

***

Checking on Zoya’s side of the equation would require a little more finesse — finesse being a much prettier way of saying ‘manipulation’.

They had grown closer, yes, but their friendship was still a fragile thing, and Zoya was not one for _opening up_. Usually, she only cared to talk about work, sneering at her colleague’s idle gossip. If she talked about anything else, it usually related to Alina.

And that was a clue in and of itself, wasn’t it?

The perfect opportunity came soon after Alina's unspoken confession in the kitchen. They’d spent the day finalizing the Second Army budget for the following year, dragging their work late into the night — and even Zoya had less of a bite when she was exhausted.

Somewhere around midnight, Nikolai came to provide his support, and he and Alina engaged in friendly banter for a couple minutes. Zoya stopped her work in her tracks, staring at them the whole time with a glare as sharp as daggers. 

They called it a night soon afterwards, but Zoya took her time to leave. Genya lingered as well.

“They’re cute, aren’t they?” she said innocently.

Zoya did not answer, slowly getting off her chair.

Undeterred by the silence, Genya went on, “I think he should propose to her again.”

Blue eyes flashed a sudden burst of anger. Zoya's fingers tightened on the wood of her seat.

“She’d refuse,” she said, cold and firm.

Genya cocked her head. “And how would you know that?”

She lifted her chin, contemptuous. “It's obvious. She’s not in love with him.”

“Isn’t she?”

Zoya walked towards the door, stopping in front of Genya. She looked… angry. And perhaps a little scared, as well. “She’s not,” she repeated, intense, sounding almost as if she was trying to convince herself more than Genya.

“Would it matter to you if she was?”

She might as well have slapped her, for how shocked Zoya looked. Her lips parted, but she said nothing, couldn’t find anything to say to that.

Eventually she looked away, and muttered, “It’s none of our business.”

Genya took her wrist, and softly said, “It could be your business.”

Zoya snatched her wrist away. She snapped, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think I do.” She walked a step closer, murmuring in Zoya’s ear. “And take this advice from someone who spent a long time longing. If you love her, let her know.” She took a step back, and smiled. “Who knows. She might surprise you.”

Zoya stayed frozen there, face twisted in a mix of shame, fear, and something more fragile, more vulnerable. 

Genya bid her good night and left her there, returning to the comfort of David’s bed.

***

The next day, Zoya and Alina did not argue once.

Genya would call the experiment a success.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the most self-indulgent thing i've ever written. all my starved zoyalina sapphics get a kiss on their forehead. (a ghost kiss, cause social distancing)
> 
> also, i adore david. maybe i relate to him a lot. maybe so
> 
> come find my zoyalina art on my ig (jmlascar) or tumblr (phy-be)


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